[5]

The city lay shrouded in a blanket of silence, broken only by the occasional moan of the undead echoing through the streets. Once a bustling metropolis teeming with life, it now stood as a near-abandoned wasteland, its buildings standing as hollow shells of their former selves.

Many of the structures still stood, their facades weathered and worn from years of neglect. But others had fallen victim to the ravages of time and decay, their crumbling walls and shattered windows bearing witness to the horrors that had befallen the city.

Streets that were once bustling thoroughfares now lay empty and desolate, their cracked pavement littered with debris and overgrown with weeds. Abandoned cars sat rusting on the roadside, their windows shattered and their tires long since deflated.

Everywhere, the signs of the apocalypse were evident. Buildings stood scorched and blackened from fires that had raged unchecked, their interiors now home to nothing but the twisted remnants of furniture and belongings left behind by those who had fled or perished.

And through it all, the undead roamed unchecked, their hunger for human flesh driving them to wander the streets in search of prey. With each passing day, they grew bolder, their numbers swelling as they continued to spread their unholy plague.

…As I lay there on the cold, unforgiving floor, tears streaming down my cheeks, I felt it all.

Every sensation, every sight, every sound of the city. It was as if my senses had been stretched far and wide, reaching out to touch the world around me in a way I had never experienced before.

The devastation of the city, the emptiness of its streets, the haunting moans of the undead – it all flooded into my consciousness, overwhelming me with a wave of sensory input that threatened to drown out my thoughts and emotions.

But amidst the chaos of my mind, I found a strange sense of clarity. The overwhelming turmoil of my emotions began to fade, replaced by a newfound awareness of the world around me. It was as if my mind had tapped into something, granting me access to a whole new level of sensory perception.

Unable to tear my focus away from the flood of sensations washing over me, I lay there in a daze, my tears still falling but my mind strangely calm. In this state of heightened awareness, I found myself unable to focus on anything but the world outside – the world that I had once called home, now reduced to ruins by the ravages of an undead apocalypse.

Slowly, I picked myself up from the floor, my gaze fixed on some unseen point in the distance. Unaware of the changes unfolding around me, I stood in a daze, my eyes unknowingly glowing with a golden hue.

Suddenly, a loud impact echoed through the room, snapping me out of my trance. I turned to see the winged creature from before, its eyes fixed on me with a bloodthirsty snarl. My gaze shifted to meet its own, my senses somewhat returning to the present.

Despite the danger looming before me, however, I felt strangely detached, my emotions buried beneath a veil of emptiness. The creature lunged towards me...

But before I could react, I vanished in the blink of an eye, reappearing in the middle of an unfamiliar park. As I looked around, I realized with a start that this was my childhood home, or at least it originally had been, but was seemingly transformed before the apocalypse left it in ruins.

The only real reason I even knew this used to be my childhood home was because of my recently-increased level of perception.

I should have felt something – sadness, grief, anger – at the sight of my once-beloved home reduced to literally nothing. But instead, I didn't feel anything. My heart was heavy yet empty, a sense of being robbed of something precious weighing down on my soul.

I glanced around at the desolate park, its beauty tarnished by the effects of what had happened to the planet. My emotions were a tangled mess, impossible to unravel as I struggled to truly make sense of the world around me.

As the muscular brute charged towards me with terrifying speed, its eyes locking onto my form with deadly intent, I remained blank-faced and emotionless, my mind still lost in a haze of emptiness. The brute plowed through the park with reckless abandon, its massive form barreling towards me with unstoppable force.

But before it could reach me, a hexagon-shaped forcefield materialized, halting the creature's charge and knocking it back several feet. I watched impassively as the forcefield held firm, protecting me from the creature's onslaught.

Then, almost as if I were being guided by some unseen force, I began to ascend towards the sky. Slowly but steadily, I rose higher and higher, until I reached the top of a nearby skyscraper. As my feet touched down on the roof, I stared out across the city, my eyes scanning the concrete jungle below.

For a few moments, I simply stood there, taking in the sight of the city that had once been my home. But then, something caught my eye – a broken fragment of glass lying on another part of the roof, reflecting my image back at me.

As I looked into the glass, my eyes widened in shock for the first time in what felt like a while. Somehow, during the chaos of the past few minutes, I had reverted to my ten-year-old self, with a set of clothes that fit my altered size and everything. It was a startling realization, one that filled me with a sense of uncertainty and confusion.

But before I could dwell on it further, the void enveloped me, and I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness once again. Just like the last time I woke up in a crater all those years ago, the world faded away, leaving me adrift in a sea of darkness.

----------

As I slowly awakened, the sight of familiar walls greeted me, and a rush of nostalgia washed over me as I recognized my childhood bedroom. Pushing myself upright, I felt strangely energized, fueled by the memories that flooded my mind.

Quickly rising from bed, I made my way to the bathroom, my eyes meeting my reflection in the mirror. Just as I had seen before, my form had reverted to that of my ten-year-old self, a puzzling mystery that I couldn't begin to unravel.

Pushing aside the confusion for the moment, I left the bathroom and descended the familiar stairwell. Peeking around the corner into the living room and kitchen, I found them empty, my parents nowhere to be seen. Furrowing my eyebrows in confusion, after taking a brief look around, I eventually concluded that they must have gone out for a while.

Returning to my bedroom, I shut the door behind me and curiously glanced around, my eyes landing on the sliding doors of my closet. With a sense of intrigue, I approached and slid them open before quickly kneeling down, reaching for a blanket and a discarded backpack. Tossing them aside, my gaze fell upon a stack of comic books hidden underneath.

For the first time since my body had reverted to that of my ten-year-old self, a small smile tugged at my lips as I reached for the familiar stack, the pages filled with adventures and stories that had essentially been my only solace during the times where my parents fought.

I felt a sense of comfort wash over me, as I was reminded of somewhat happier times.

Just then, however, an overwhelmingly-powerful sense of fatigue seemed to abruptly sneak up on me. Before I knew it, my eyes were fluttering shut, while the rest of my body proceeded to fall forward, the stack of comic books doing rather well to cushion my unexpected descent.

Then, everything went black.